Amaryllis

  “You know the full extent of Amaryllis’s psychic abilities?”

  “Recognized them when she was in her teens,” Sophy said. “It was like watching myself mature all over again.”

  Lucas exhaled slowly. “You, too?”

  “It’s in the blood. Runs through the women on my side of the family. Getting stronger with each generation, I think.”

  “I see.”

  “It’s not easy for prisms like us. Officially, our level of psychic power doesn’t even exist because there’s simply no way to test it beyond assessing our ability to handle a class-ten talent. The fact that we don’t burn out doing so doesn’t really tell the researchers anything except that we are full spectrum.” Sophy shrugged. “We go through life aware that we’re different but never really understanding just how different.”

  Lucas was silent for a moment. Then he decided to tell Sophy the truth. She was family, after all.

  “I know the feeling,” Lucas said.

  “Yes, I expect you do. Just how far off the talent scale are you?”

  “I have no idea.”

  “Of course not. Stupid question. There’s no way to test you, either, is there?”

  “No.” Lucas settled deeper into his chair. “But I’ve got my papers. Class nine. Faked the talent certification exam. Lied through my teeth.”

  “As you now know, that’s an old family tradition. Ever burn out Amaryllis?”

  “No.”

  “I knew she was strong.” Sophy watched two of the children chase the ball into the shadows at the edge of the garden. “Talent or prism, it’s all psychic energy. A very volatile component of our being. We all have to wage our own private struggles to learn to cope with our sixth sense.”

  Lucas thought about the long hours he had spent in his secret grotto. “Yeah.”

  “I have a hunch that the stronger it is, the harder it is to manage. Personally, I went a little wild during my younger days. Gave my family fits. Amaryllis chose the opposite approach. She tried to control her world, herself, and her psychic powers with lots of personal rules.”

  “She didn’t invent all those rules just to control her psychic abilities,” Lucas said. “She needed them for other reasons, too.”

  “Yes,” Sophy said. “She did. Growing up in this town as Matt Bailey’s illegitimate daughter was the kind of experience that was bound to make or break her character. She came through it with flying colors, I’m pleased to say.”

  “But she paid a price,” Lucas said.

  Sophy shrugged. “We all do, one way or another. I asked you to come out here tonight because I wanted to make certain you understood that. I can see that you do.”

  Lucas contemplated the shape of Amaryllis’s derriere as she climbed up the barn loft ladder ahead of him. It was a pleasant sight, one he would have been content to enjoy for an extended period of time. Unfortunately, there were not many rungs on the ladder.

  “This is it,” she announced as she scrambled off the ladder and tumbled into the straw. “No beautiful green pool and no dripping rock walls for atmosphere, but on a farm you take what you can get.”

  Lucas reached the top rung of the ladder and looked around the shadowy loft with great interest. This was Amaryllis’s secret place. Sunlight seeped through the small cracks in the wooden walls. The scent of the stored feed and straw was rich in his nostrils. Down below, a big ox-mule shifted on its six legs.

  “It’s a good place,” Lucas said.

  “Yes, it is, isn’t it? But it seems smaller now than it did when I was a kid.”

  Lucas eased himself off the ladder and sat down beside her. “I guess things in the past often seem smaller when we go back and face them as adults.”

  Amaryllis rested her chin on her knees. “I’m going to test that theory this afternoon.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “I’m going to call on Elizabeth Bailey.”

  Lucas nodded. “What changed your mind?”

  “You did.”

  “Me?”

  “What you did for Dillon, even though his parents had shunned you for three years. It was the right thing. The kind of thing one does for family. It made me think.”

  “Fancy that,” Lucas murmured. “Me, a model of family values.”

  Amaryllis smiled. “A regular paragon of founders’ virtues. But, then, I always knew you were a hero.”

  Elizabeth Bailey was, indeed, smaller than Amaryllis had remembered. No taller than Amaryllis, herself, to be exact. But she was no less formidable than she had seemed that day all those years ago when Amaryllis had run up to her on the street and asked her the question that defined their relationship. Are you really my grandmother?

  Elizabeth was still every bit as striking as Amaryllis recalled. Her aristocratic features were firm and strong. Her eyes were a sharp, vivid green, the same shade of green that Amaryllis saw in the mirror every morning.

  “I suppose you are wondering why I asked you to visit me.” Elizabeth put down her delicate porcelain coff-tea cup. She regarded Amaryllis and Lucas with the cool, contained expression of a woman who had encountered many obstacles over the years and who has surmounted them all.

  “Yes,” Amaryllis said. “I am.”

  Elizabeth flicked an assessing glance at Lucas. Then she looked at Amaryllis. “I understand that the two of you are engaged.”

  “Yes,” Amaryllis said.

  “Congratulations.”

  “Thank you.” Amaryllis waited.

  Other than the soft hum of the mantle clock, there was no sound in the vast, elaborately draped and carpeted living room. The atmosphere was heavy and oppressive. Amaryllis had to resist a strong urge to open a window. It felt as if there had been no fresh air in this house for years.

  “I requested this meeting so that I could give you something,” Elizabeth said after a moment.

  Amaryllis barely managed to conceal her surprise. “That’s not necessary. I don’t want anything from you.”

  “Yes, I know.” Elizabeth’s smile was bitter. “Your mother’s family has given you everything you’ve needed.”

  “Yes, they did.” Amaryllis put down her untouched cup of coff-tea. She glanced at Lucas. “I’ve been very lucky.”

  “I have not been lucky at all,” Elizabeth said. “But it is only now that I see the woman you have become that I realize the true extent of my misfortune.”

  Amaryllis stilled. “I don’t understand.”

  “No, I don’t suppose you do. Well, that is not important any longer. I am responsible for most of my own ill luck, and I have no one to blame but myself.”

  Amaryllis thought of what Sophy had said about Elizabeth assuming the guilt for what had happened in the past. She smiled in spite of herself. “My great-aunt once said that you had a talent for drama. She thinks it’s a shame that you didn’t go into the theater.”

  Elizabeth looked briefly disconcerted. “Am I being melodramatic?”

  “A little, but that’s all right.” Amaryllis felt herself begin to relax for some inexplicable reason. “It’s a somewhat melodramatic occasion, isn’t it?”

  “It certainly strikes me that way.” Elizabeth picked up a small box that had been sitting on the table beside her chair. “Well, I mustn’t keep you. This is for you.”

  Warily, Amaryllis took the box from Elizabeth’s hand. She opened it slowly and looked inside. A heavy, masculine ring set with a large, brilliant fire crystal rested on a small, white satin pillow. Amaryllis knew little about jewelry, but everyone knew the value of fire crystal. She hurriedly closed the lid.

  “I can’t possibly accept this.” She held the box out to Elizabeth. “It’s much too valuable.”

  Pain flared in Elizabeth’s eyes. “It belonged to my son Matthew. Your father. I want you to have it.”

  “My father.” Amaryllis clutched at the small box. “This was his ring?”

  “Yes. He would have been very proud of you, Amaryllis. Any parent would have been proud of
such a fine daughter.”

  Amaryllis stared at the ring box. “I don’t know what to say.”

  “Many years ago you asked me a question.”

  Amaryllis raised her gaze from the ring box to Elizabeth’s face. The anger and the pain still stood there between them, an impossible wall that could never be climbed.

  But there are other ways to get past a wall, Amaryllis realized. If one felt strong enough, one could walk around the far end of it and find oneself on the other side. It didn’t mean that the wall suddenly ceased to exist. It simply meant that there were methods of dealing with walls.

  “Are you really my grandmother?” Amaryllis asked.

  The gleam of hope in Elizabeth’s eyes warmed the cold room.

  “Yes,” she said. “I am.”

  Chapter

  19

  “I’ve been dreading that visit to Elizabeth Bailey.” Amaryllis watched the scenery flash past the Icer’s window. “But in the end, after all was said and done, I realized that, although I’m never going to actually learn to like the woman, mostly I just felt sorry for her.”

  Lucas flexed his hands on the steering bar. “She screwed up a lot of lives.”

  “She believed that she was doing the right thing. But she was rigid, inflexible, and proud.”

  Lucas said nothing.

  Amaryllis grimaced. “I know, I know. I have a lot in common with her. What can I say? She’s my grandmother.”

  “She’s your grandmother, all right, but you don’t have very much in common with her. Elizabeth Bailey is one cold eel-fish. Five seconds after meeting her this afternoon, I could have told you that she’s spent a lifetime coercing others into doing what she thought they should do.”

  “I’m sure she had her motives.”

  “Yeah, right. Motives like trying to control everyone and everything around her.”

  “Is that a fact?” Amaryllis smiled blandly. “What about me? What would you say motivates my actions?”

  Lucas did not hesitate. “Loyalty. A sense of justice. Family.”

  “Elizabeth Bailey could claim that her actions were based on those same three principles.”

  “I have a hunch that for Elizabeth, her principles stand alone in a vacuum. There is no place in her rigid little world for friendship, compassion, and love. Your values, on the other hand, are sunk deep in that kind of bedrock.”

  “Hmm. Well, in that case, I guess you and I have a few things in common, after all, don’t we?”

  Lucas shot her a derisive glance. “Oh, no, you don’t. I’m no modern-day version of one of your idealized founders. Don’t you dare try to pin a halo and some wings on me.”

  “Nobody ever said the founders were angels. But I do think that you work much too hard at concealing your own virtues.”

  “Amaryllis, I’m warning you.”

  “Just look at all the fine, altruistic things you’ve done since we met.” Amaryllis held up one hand and ticked her points off on her fingers. “You let that thieving vice president, Miranda Locking, get away with her crimes because you felt sorry for her. You helped Dillon Rye out of the mess he got himself into because he was your disloyal ex-partner’s kid brother. You helped me track down a murderer because you wanted to protect me.”

  “Funny how hard it is to distinguish between my virtues and my weaknesses,” Lucas muttered.

  “Oh, I don’t know. Most of the time the distinction is as clear as prism crystal to me.”

  “Yeah?” Lucas glanced at her. “What about those occasions when it’s not quite that clear?”

  “I’m learning not to worry too much about the vague stuff.” Amaryllis grew thoughtful. “But there are a couple of things I’d like to see cleared up.”

  “About me?”

  “No. About Professor Landreth’s death.”

  “Damn. You never give up, do you? Now what?”

  “I’d still like to know how Madison Sheffield discovered that he was the subject of Professor Landreth’s hot file.”

  Lucas exhaled deeply. “Just so you’ll know in the future, tenacity is one of those vague virtues you mentioned a minute ago. It’s not always a good thing.”

  An hour and a half later, Lucas drove into the night-darkened city. It was raining. The light from the streetlamps glimmered on the wet pavement and reflected in the shop windows.

  Amaryllis roused herself from thoughts of the meeting with Elizabeth Bailey just as Lucas turned a corner and drove slowly down the quiet street to her house. The answer to the problem that she had been mulling over during the long drive suddenly crystallized.

  “Irene Dunley,” Amaryllis said.

  “Huh?”

  “I’ve been thinking about my grandmother.”

  “What’s Elizabeth Bailey got to do with Irene Dunley?” Lucas asked as he brought the Icer to a stop at the curb.

  “There’s something about my grandmother that reminds me of Irene.”

  “What?”

  “It’s hard to explain.” The excitement of intuitive discovery hummed through Amaryllis. She was suddenly seething with impatience. “They’ve both spent a lifetime controlling everything around them.”

  “I’ll go along with that conclusion.” Lucas deactivated the ignition and turned slightly in the seat. He rested one arm on the steering bar and watched Amaryllis from the shadows. “Where does it lead?”

  “I’m not sure.” Amaryllis tapped one finger on the seat. “To tell you the truth, I’m almost afraid to think about it. Irene was one of Madison Sheffield’s staunchest supporters. She believed in him. Lucas, what if Irene was the person who told Madison Sheffield about Professor Landreth’s file?”

  Lucas thought that over. “Okay, it’s a possibility. But so what? We’ve already decided that the person who told Sheffield about the file was probably connected to the Department of Focus Studies.”

  “Of all the people in the department, Irene would have been the one most likely to know about the contents of the file. She had worked with Professor Landreth forever, and he trusted her more than anyone else. She was fiercely loyal to him. I think she even loved him. But what if she learned about the file and was torn between what she felt was her duty to the future of New Seattle city-state and her loyalty to Professor Landreth?”

  “Hard to tell what she would do.”

  Amaryllis shook her head. “No. I think I know Irene Dunley well enough to believe that in a situation like that, she might very easily have concluded that she had a responsibility to inform Sheffield about the threat to his campaign.”

  “And then what?”

  “Why, she would have felt guilty for having betrayed Professor Landreth, of course. Just as Elizabeth Bailey felt guilty for having ruined her son’s chance of happiness. That kind of guilt would have eaten at Irene. Tormented her. Even though she knew she had done what she felt was the right thing.”

  “You think that’s why she tried to help you when you decided to solve the mystery of Landreth’s death?”

  “Yes.” Amaryllis watched the rain fall on the Icer’s windshield. “I think she must have begun to wonder if she had inadvertently signed Professor Landreth’s death warrant when she told Sheffield about the file.”

  “She did sign it. But it’s over now. She’ll have to live with it.” Lucas opened his door. “Come on, let’s get the luggage inside.”

  Amaryllis tugged the hood of her raincoat up over her head and got out of the car. Lucas hauled the suitcases out of the trunk and joined her on the sidewalk.

  Together, they hurried to the shelter of the small overhang above the front steps. Amaryllis unsealed the lock, pushed open the front door, and stepped inside the darkened hall.

  The whisper of talent brushed against her senses and raised the fine hairs on the back of her neck.

  Someone was inside the house.

  “Lucas.”

  “I felt it.” He dropped the suitcases and clamped a hand around her arm. “Let’s get out of here.” He started to pull he
r back out onto the steps.

  Amaryllis did not resist. She swung around, ready to run. There was a familiar tingling on the psychic plane. Lucas was reaching for a focus link even as he drew her to safety. He no doubt wanted to use his detector-talent to try to learn something about the intruder.

  Amaryllis opened herself to the link. Felt the instant of disorientation, the jarring seconds of complete vulnerability as her mind constructed a prism …

  … And then she staggered and nearly fell as an impossible surge of talent seized her in an iron fist. Alien, powerful, and brutal.

  This was not Lucas. Amaryllis panicked. Not Lucas.

  She tried to pull back but she was trapped. To her horror, the prism took shape on the psychic plane.

  Someone or something else took control of the energy construct. Power poured through it. Torrents of dark power.

  Amaryllis screamed. She clutched her head with both hands and tried to cut off her own flow of psychic energy. “No. Stop it. Stop it.”

  Nothing happened. She could not shut down the link. Lucas had her outside on the steps. Rain whipped at her coat. Frantically she tried to blank her mind. The link held strong.

  “What is it?” Lucas pulled her to him. “What the hell is going on?”

  “Another talent.” Amaryllis collapsed against him.

  “Five hells.” He caught her. “I can feel the bastard.”

  “Strong. So strong.” If she did not get free, she would go insane, Amaryllis thought. A fresh wave of panic crashed through her.

  Lucas picked her up in his arms. “Break the link. Destroy the prism.”

  “I can’t. Lucas, I can’t release the focus. I’m trapped.” Distance would help, Amaryllis knew. The strength of any talent was directly affected by proximity. “Get me away from here.”

  “As fast as I can,” Lucas vowed. He started toward the car with Amaryllis in his arms.

  Talent slammed through the prism. Amaryllis looked fearfully back over Lucas’s shoulder toward the open doorway of her house. She expected to see a monster lumber into view.

  Instead, a familiar figure emerged from the shadows of the hall and moved out onto the front step.